in finding the key before the timer runs out can you unlock it; retrieve the antidote inside. I will give you just one hint as to where that key is...

(being the second in a planned series of four posts trying to write something a little more penetrating about why I think it is that I've become so enamored--some would say obsessed--with the Saw films)

I avoided the Saw movies for so long just because I am squeamish about gore, and I thought--based on catchphrases like "Oh yes...there will be blood," that was all there was to them.

A few months ago, though, Saw II (trailer above) showed up on the FEARnet section of Comcast on Demand.

So out of curiosity, I tried it. Cut to an hour and 35 minutes later...and I know that whatever else you can say about them, there is more to the Saw films than just gore.

Something occurs to me, right now. Maybe one reason I've become so "obsessed" with the films is that they ask a question I've been asking myself in one way or another a lot these days: What price will you pay for hope?

The price is a big part of it, Jigsaw's deranged sense of "karma;" the strange, eerie calm with which he acts and again, the diabolical nature of his larger traps.

In Saw II, the Donnie Wahlberg character might not have been doomed if he had just listened, paid attention, and realized something: Jigsaw never lies...

Here's a trap from Saw II that's generally held to be one of the scariest. That's Shawnee Smith as Amanda (the girl who goes into the pit), BTW.



It doesn't scare me, though it kinda makes me sick, but if you wanna get just a bit more of the willies, know that Smith was pregnant with her second baby when this scene was filmed.